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Subscribe to RSSThe shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School left the quiet community of Newtown, Conn., desperately trying to understand what happened. NBC's Kate Snow reports.
Updated at 7:17 p.m. ET: The first that some pupils heard of the mass shootings Friday at their Connecticut elementary school was when gunshots and screams started coming over the intercom system, according to accounts from the scene.
Twenty children, all ages 5 to 10, and six adults were killed when a masked gunman opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., authorities said. The gunman was later found dead, a federal law enforcement official told NBC News.
26 dead after gunman assaults Connecticut elementary school
Connecticut school shooting is second worst in US history
The brother of a little girl who made it out of the school safely told NBC 30 of Connecticut that his sister told him that her class knew something was wrong "when she heard screams — screams were coming over the intercom and the school went on lockdown."
NBCConnecticut: Newtown massacre: 28 dead
As the children were being led out of the school, state troopers and FBI agents told them to "hold hands and close their eyes until they got outside," said the unidentified young man, "so obviously what was in there must have been very gruesome."
"It truly is disgusting. It's sickening," he said. "Unfortunately, it's a growing trend in the United States."
The Rev. Al Sharpton talks with Kathy Sweeney, whose 8-year-old grandson was at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday.
"It was just horrific, and I just found out that a neighbor ... lost a child," said Kathy Sweeney, whose 8-year-old grandson attends the school.
The boy is doing OK, she told MSNBC, but "I don't think it has set in yet."
Sweeney said her grandson told her that he and his classmates were in a computer room when they were told to duck under their computers.
"The PA system was on, and he said that he heard the gunshots," she said. "And then he said that they were supposed to close their eyes and they made their way up to the firehouse up the street."
See more video on the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary on NBCNews.com
Another pupil said everyone "went into a total panic" when they started hearing the gunshots.
"I was going back to my classroom," the boy said. "Then I heard something like a person was kicking on a door. Then I turned around and I saw smoke. ... Then a teacher pulled me into her room."
Asked what his reaction was amid the chaos, the boy said simply, "Whoa."
"You can never be prepared for this kind of incident," an emotional Gov. Dan Malloy said, his voice shaking as he recounted the assault on "a number of our citizens, beautiful children, as well as the adults whose responsibility is to educate those children."
Newtown police Lt. George Sinko called the shootings "definitely the worst thing we have experienced in this town," telling reporters it took officers just minutes after they arrived to recognize "what a horrific scene we had there."
The father of a pupil at Sandy Hook Elementary School describes his feelings upon hearing about the shootings. Then, Colin Goddard, a survivor of the Virginia Tech shootings, reacts to the interview, saying, "We are better than this."
'A powerless and terrifying experience'
The father of a Sandy Hook pupil said he had "no words that I could come up with that could come close to describing the sheer terror of hearing that your son is in a place, or your child is in a place, where there's been violence."
"You don't know the details of that violence. You don't know the condition of your child, and you can't do anything immediately to help them or protect them," he said.
"That is a powerless and terrifying experience."
Sarah W. Caron found a scene of chaos when she arrived to look for her young son. Teachers, police and parents, some of them crying, handed out water and tried to restore some order, she wrote on iVillage.
"The moment I spotted Will's little brown haired head was one of such great relief. I hugged him. I hugged his teacher," Caron wrote. "But this isn't over. My family is safe — thank God — but our school community was shattered today by a horrific tragedy."
A staging area for parents to reunite with their children was set up at the neighboring firehouse.
An elementary school pupil recalls the terrifying moments following sounds of shots at her Connecticut school, saying, "Teachers told us to go in the corner, so we all huddled."
"I was in the gym, and I heard, like, seven loud booms, and the gym teachers told us to go in a corner, and we all huddled, and I kept hearing these booming noises," a young girl said.
"We all started — well, we didn't scream — we all started crying, so all the gym teachers told us to go into the office where no one could find us," the girl said.
"So then a police officer came in and told us to run outside, so we did, and we came in the firehouse and waited for our parents."
"The children who witnessed this are terribly traumatized," said Msgr. Robert Weiss of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, who went to the firehouse to offer support and comfort. Weiss' church organized a memorial Mass for 7 p.m. ET.
"They're crying, they're trying to hold on to their parents, they want to go home, but they don't want to leave their friends," Weiss told MSNBC.
"Right now, I'm in a room full of parents who are waiting to hear what happened to their kids," he said. "The anxiety in this room is just overwhelming."
Andrew Mach and Vignesh Ramachandran of NBC News contributed to this report.
For up-to-the-minute coverage of the shootings at Sandy Creek Elementary School, stay with NBCNews.com and tune in to your local NBC station to watch tonight's special report on Dateline NBC.
Neil Culligan and Msgr. Robert Weiss dewcribe the scene outside Sandy Hook elementary School. NBC News' Richard Lui reports.
Related content from NBCNews.com:
- Elementary school massacre: 28 killed, including 20 kids
- Vigils, services honor school shooting victims
- Video: 'Our hearts are broken,' Obama says
- Gunman's mother owned weapons used in massacre
- 'Screams were coming over the intercom'
- Video: School shooting reignites gun control debate
- Massacre leaves America shocked and grieving ... again
- Connecticut school shooting is second worst in US history
- Authorities ID gunman who killed 27 in elementary school massacre
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This man also killed his dad in NJ.
I have no words for these parents who have lost a child at school of all places. I cannot imagine getting that call.
It has nothing to do with guns, we can put the most rigorous gun laws into place, and people will still find a way. (History tells us this) Not only that, for those of you who don’t use or have guns, it’s not rocket science to make a gun that will shoot a bullet. (Those are also easy to make, so don’t form educational guesses about gun laws.).
We as Americas have berried are heads into the sand, we have relied upon others to take care of us, to feed us, to cloths us. Instead of just being hard working and living life, there is no nation that is prized when the government takes care of its people, it does not work.
This kid is with my generation and it’s just sick to see this, we are a much divided generation. If he had a mental illness then he should have been institutionalized, hopefully we will bring back this type of long term treatment facilities as they ended these back quite some time ago. I guess we need to stop dog bone grants, how to make a book grants and get the money into justice.
Every school should have a police officer to screen all who walk in, it’s a start to building a progressive program.
The problem isn't guns or video games. Its those who support abortion rights and justify the slaughter of children daily as just another choice in life. These kids were just a little older, but you support their murder everyday at a much earlier age.
Think this comment is insensitive, well I don't care for the left wing jumping on legitimate gun rights either so I guess we're even.
Dennis, it's not insensitive, it's ignorant. Find a normal, mentally healthy woman who chose to have an abortion and you will likely find someone who struggled with the decision, feels some guilt and shame whether in any way actually justified (but likely because empathy challenged people tell her so), and would probably go out of her way to help other women avoid the circumstances under which they would have to make that choice. It is not in any way a casual "just another choice in life" like what kind of coffee to drink.
Conversely, people are a little to free and easy about the potential ramifications of gun ownership: as I stated previously, it too often leads to innocent deaths in the same home, or by virtue of being stolen, to deaths of other innocents outside the home. Where do you think street corner guns come from - they come from those stolen from peoples homes.
You can't tell the difference between a zygote and an elementary school child? Abortion has been legal long before these school shooting started occurring. If you blame abortion, then you are sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the real problems behind these mass murders. It absolutely involves violent video games along with a lack of empathy towards others. People are more disconnected and selfish than ever. The school shootings started occurring as violent video games became more popular.
And you can't forget the NRA nuts who just add to the problem. Why is abortion wrong, but deaths by guns OK?
Funny how if these students had been killed in the womb it is ok, now since it is by gunfire is wrong.
Liberals are all for killing children before they are born, but ask the death penalty for some slug who rapes and murders a child and they all go ballistic because it is "cruel and unusual punishment". Figure that one out.
Plan271A I suggest you go visit Planned Parenthood and see for yourself.
Dennis, please please please.....SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP.....
Chimes, you do realize you are in a serious disconnect. Either you believe in the sanctity of life or you don't. You cannot reasonable argue right to birth and call it right to life and promote the death penalty in the same post. People will think you are crazy. I know I do.
And see what Chimes? I've been to Planned Parenthood and saw nothing but caring people (nearly all volunteers) trying to give mostly poor and uneducated women a fighting chance against their idiot male relations. What is it you want me to see?
Lovely - I hate to have to educate you, but the Bath School Massacre was perpetuated in 1927 - before abortion was legal, video games were invented, and before some 2400 gun laws have been written. Gun laws don't fix this problem, video games may contribute (a matter of opinion), and abortion has nothing to do with it. However, abortion is wrong and it is murder. I don't think any anti-abortion advocate would say that this shooting was a good thing - the point appears to have been that this is as tragic. Abortion takes many more lives every year than guns - period.
It is a severe disconnect to support abortion and be against guns. Abortion is designed to end a human life (a zygote is a human - it is distinctly different than a frog zygote) while a gun is designed as a tool to harvet food, protect law enforcement, provide recreation, and - potentially - to end a human life. Guns have a lot more redeeming qualities than an abortion vacuum!
Interesting how you listed the uses of a gun in the least relevant order. Try this:
Guns were invented to kill humans. There is nothing potential about it.
They are used by law enforcement to kill humans. A gun is not a shield; it does not protect.
Guns are not farm implements used to "harvest" crops. They are sometimes used to kill defensless animals for sport (murder), population control, and occasionally for food. It is not farm equipment.
Guns can be used for recreation such as fixed target and clay pidgeon shooting.
And a zygot is not a human, it is a single or clump of cells not in any manner whatsoever resembling or acting as a developed human being.
I think that this country is facing a huge mental issue problem because of not only this, but also all the other crimes committed against innocent kids like sexual assaults, homicide, all kinds of abuse. Can u believe parents locking their children in dog cages for years? I truly believe that those criminals have no God in their hearts, or better yet haven't heard of God. When we start punishing them as brutally as their crimes, we will have less crimes and better results.
Rest in peace little angels, Rest in peace teachers.....Rot in HELL killer, no matter what u have gone through or what ur sickness was, what u did doesn't deserve any mercy. TFU
May God help all the victims parents in this hard time for them.
In the U.S. weapons possession procedure is very easy, that's wrong.Also viedogames topics violent murders of human psyches affects young people.Also the children's relations with parents as parents' divorce, which is very pronounced in the U.S., also domestic violence that affects many of the youth psyches.These are the matters that American authorities should take improvement in the future.At least it was just a thought of mine
In point of fact, it is actually not that easy to own a weapon in either New Jersey or Connecticut, there are background checks, waiting periods, and even then you are not allowed to carry the gun outside your home loaded AND it is a federal felony to bring a gun across state lines.
one percent max: just because it is a felony to bring a gun across state lines does not mean there are less guns int eh state than anywhere else, they are not checking for them at the state borders, you know. The strict laws need to be in all states. How do you think 11 year olds are getting guns?
11 year olds NEVER get guns unsupervised legally anywhere in this country.
Adam Lanza tried to buy a weapon, and he was denied just three days earlier. This gentleman was not a legal gun owner - his monther was, and he killed her to get her weapons and her car. He stole his brother's ID. He forced his way into the school, despite their attempts to keep him out. He was not stopping while still drawing oxygen freely on his own.
The system WORKED - he was determined and he broke the law - several laws - to perpetrate this horrendous act despite the system. You can blame the firearms as being efficient, but they were not convenient, and they were not necessary for this wacko to perpetrate this senseless act of violence. He had a personal vendetta against 3 of the adult victims, and he apparently was upset enough to do whatever it took to become a household name and pave the road to hell with innocent blood.
I just wish the news would stop interviewing these children...haven't they been through enough already today! Please be respectful and cognizent of their emotional well-being!
Heartbreaking...
very heartbreaking , rswall ..the fear & terror these young kids went through breaks my heart . :(
the caramel commie just gave a speech where he almost broke down talking about it. heres a guy who has slaughtered 1000's of kids with his drones. madeline albright said the deaths of 500,000 kids in iraq from our sanctions was worth it (for israel) I will give up my guns when purple lips gives up his drones and all govt officials involved in the iraq sanctions are hung
uka, you are an idiot.
all kill2 please explain where i am wrong you cant so you called me a name
I can answer. He didn't start it. He is, however, trying to finish it. and the name I would prefer is poopy-head, idiot has too much class.
Our society is sick, and these shootings are just a symptom of the disease. Even if we could somehow magically make all of the guns in the country disappear, the sickness would remain and those effected would just find a new way to kill and main innocent people. Moral relativism is to blame for our condition. Young people today are taught that there is no universal good or evil, it is all relative. Therefore the only moral imperatives they understand are their own narcissistic base emotions and desires. Until we find a better way to deal with these problems there will only be more and more of these incidents.
you might be on to something in the 50's and 60's kids brought their guns to school during deer season and a lot of schools had shooting with .22's classes
Desensitizing of america is a part of the destroy us from within doctrine of Russian Socialist Stalen. We can continue to ignore whether or not its video games, movies, access to weapons without the monitoring who is buying and why they are buying so many. I grew-up watching a lot of hateful crap and believe it almost turned me into a racist and I'm black. So, don't give me that about tv, radio, newspapers, video games, movies, etc. do not affect the way a person either portray or imagine themselves in the real world. This just broke my heart, that I or anyone could not protect these little ones and there instructors (our soldiers are dying so that we can be free to put up with this kind of freakncrap). There might be something said about if everyman is armed cowardly events like this would not springup unexpectedly and as often (because they apparently don't want to be captured or removed from earth by any authority but their own--suicide).
gary you are in a fantasy world our soldiers are killing kids every day. wake up. bates killed more kids in afgahn. the next day the soldiers probably bombed a wedding party
please stop all the bickering and just pray for the souls of the little ones, the adult victims and the families who are in unimaginable pain right now. There is time ahead for solutions and arguments.
yeah lets lite some candles. that will fix everything
This is a horrible stain on our country.Pray for these people,they need it without a doubt.The people saying video games and gun laws caused this could not be more wrong.A video game doesn't make you kill someone,and guns don't make you kill.STUPID ASS PEOPLE with guns kill people.No one made the shooter go into the school and kill those people,they did it by pure choice.Get on somewhere with that @!$%#.At the end of the day,YOU choose the things YOU do.Not a damn video game.That's all there is to it.
how many hours have you been playing video game. get some sleep
Prayer go out to those who lost friends, and family to this monster. Gun control is not the answer because that only stops those who would never do this kind of thing for owning a gun. The criminals and the mental cases will always find a way to get their hands on a gun. Maybe schools should be on lock-down all day long, or like our local high school only one door open...right up front by the office. Do ya think a metal detector is "cheaper" than the lives of our children...even one child? This is our world, and it is decaying around us, and it is not getting any better. "Come Lord Jesus, and save us from this wicked world!"
Look, unless you are going to have armed guards, you should not have "gun free zones". The idiots who support gun free zones need to explain how they will guarantee peoples safety once they take that ability away from people. We need people with permits everywhere, and we need cops to stop "holding up" outside of these buildings waiting for the shooter to run out of ammo or kill themselves. Seriously, is it the police unions, greasy lawyers or cowardly cops/politicians that refuse to let 1st responders go INTO these situations to save lives?
The 2nd amendment is always going to be a vital way to keep the government worried about over-reach. Think about it, the Obama Admin is monitoring your email, your facebook posts, your medical records, your international phone calls (after the left screamed about it during the WOT). They are taking away private property rights left and right. Without arms there would be zero concern on their part about push-back.
martin you are 100% right
Martin; apparently you didn't pay attention to the reporting on the shooting in Seattle the other day. I read an article that talked about the lessons being learned.
One of the new tactics is to form a group of 4 1st responders, and go in using squad tactics. I was happy to read that at the time.
Now it appears that we need to get even more creative. Do we need to make our schools inpenetrable?
tom you are delusional the yellow cops will still stay outside until the danger is over. if they did go in they would shoot many innocents being they could get away with it or blame the shooter
Wake up you liberal morons, even the most restrictive gun controls would not have kept this guy or anyone else who wanted to do an evil deed from obtaining a gun to do what he did.
Those who are mentally ill and want to do something like this will find a way. In China there have been a rash of stabbings of young school children. We can either discuss the true cause of this tragedy or we can use it to further our own misguided political agendas.
www.ibtimes.com/school-stabbings-focus-attention-chinas-mental-health-care-system-938335
Lets stop trying to point fingers. We need to find out e=what is going on in these peoples heads that cause them to do these things. Blame guns.....Blame video games......Bad parenting......what about the media? These people crave the attention so lets take away our right to free speech. Then none of you can get on here and b!tch. Instead go home and hug your wife,husband,kids,parents,grandparents. Goto your neighbors house house hug them. Nobody cares anymore. How many people actually know thier neighbor? Yes I own guns. Quite a few of them. I cannot or do not condone whats these idiots do with their guns. At the very minimum..........take a min and say a prayer for these children who lost their lives today.....for the parents who lost children, and for the people who have to come in to sort this out and clean up the mess.
This is truly tragic and devastating. Something needs to done not only with gun laws but more security checkpoints for everyone regardless of who enters the schools. Since the one kid parent worked there, they probably just let him walk on in. I understand some high schools have metal detectors so maybe they should have them for all of them. My prayers go out to the families.
Anything that can make guns less available and less in circulation should be tried, including the banning of all types of cheap handguns and assault weapons and the required registering of guns used for legitimate reasons as collecting or hunting or target shooting which can be only for those over a certain age say, 21. Some crimminals will still be able to get them but nutjobs such as this will have a harder time and anything the might help in this is a good thing. Enough is enough!!!
If the government and the naive idealists get their way- it's not just nutjobs that can't own guns...none of us will be able to unless you work for the government. Christians and any one who speaks up against the current administration will be labeled a "nutjob" - many already are. You better believe I want to be able to have my gun to defend myself and my children if some homicidal maniac attacks. You have the right to be a whimp if you want to - but don't force me to be by taking away my means of defending my family.
Why don't you all stop attacking each other and have some compassion and respect for other people and their opinions? It doesn't matter how it happened, it happened and that is what matters. We need to come together as a community, start supporting one another and face the problems of our community together. It's people that lack compassion and morals who commit acts like this, and we need to help these people by doing something about mental illness and the lack of compassion for one another.
YES. This blog site is not for arguing against each others view just to demonstrate them. ALL OF THOSE with out cooth should refrain them- selves from slamming each other so not to insult the dead or their families. How about offering the family your condolences.
I feel just as bad for the mothers of these kids exactly like I feel sorrow for an iraqui mother that had her daughter turned into protoplasm by one of our bombs. the purple lipped lawn jockey will not make this disaster go to waste
Of course we pray for these children and their families, but these cowardly acts by sick people could be stopped if schools had armed security guards or administrators trained with weapons to defend the children. Guns are not the problem- a culture that devalues human life and liberty is. Right now that culture of death is being supported on a national level by our own government. They want to disarm patriots so they can complete their plans to create complete dependence on government. Americans must fight to protect their Second Amendment rights to protect their children and families.
It is unbelievable how far this society has sunk too. When I was a kid, we used to take our rifles to school, yes and on the school bus by the driver, leave them in the principals office until after school, then pick them up and walk home through the fields and shoot rabbits. No one gave it a second thought.
blog bob you are right and a decent human being and chimes you are correct
Chas-2526042 said, "some criminals will still be able to get them".
Got news for you Chas, ANY criminal will still be able to get a gun no mater how restrictive you make gun control laws. Gun control laws are for law abiding people, not for people who choose to break the law, that is why they are called "criminals". Wise up.
Sometime in the very near future, when it starts to settle somewhat you will find that this man had some sort of abandonment issues with his mother, or some other issue that will be used as a bases of his actions. Obviously this man had very severe mental issues. Whether or not he showed them is one thing, but some where deep down he had these problems. It is a tragedy that he had to take it out on 20 extremely innocent young lives. Little children who have done nothing wrong but go to school and be happy. This Animal took their lives from this earth and their parents.
If there is a Hell I sincerely hope he burns for eternity suffering 100 times fold for each of this beautiful lives he has taken.
So we blame it on society or his upbringing and make him the victim. Typical attitude of so many today, never hold anyone accountable for their own actions.
People need to stop being sympathetic to people that have abandonment issues or whatever problems he or "they" might have had. Over the ages, people have dealt with terrible things a lot worse than their mothers having to work to provide for them. If kids were not spoiled so badly and coddled and given every little thing they asked for and every time they cried, and taken to counseling every time somebody said a bad word to them, perhaps their little problems wouldn't turn into issues that they would pick up guns over and kill babies.
I KNOW HOW TO PROPERLY MAINTAIN AND SHOOT A GUN, BUT I DON'T GO AROUND SHOOTING PLACES UP! I KNOW BETTER! Seriously, we need to FOCUS on those families affected by today's tragedy, NOT GUN CONTROL POLITICS! WE as a society, just need to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for one's actions...instead of blaming on gun owners, or video games! As for gun control...there needs to be administered at least two tests (one being a psych eval), AND a FULL BACKGROUND CHECK! AS FOR VIDEO GAMES...PARENTS, REGULATE your kids' time playing and WHAT they're playing! PEOPLE, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS! MY HEART goes out to those families affected by today's tragedy!